


strangers in the night (love was just a glance away)

by quibbler



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, One Night Stand AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 09:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2105331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quibbler/pseuds/quibbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two people meet at a club where neither one belongs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	strangers in the night (love was just a glance away)

**Author's Note:**

> Another version of a Tumblr prompt. Un-betaed, definitely OOC. Marvel owns everything!

Leo Fitz feels incredibly out of place at this club.

Not only was he on a business trip to London, several hundred miles away from home in Glasgow, but his co-workers had somehow convinced him to leave his flat the night before they had to return. He was in London often enough that it made more sense to rent a place rather than stay at a hotel, but it was a curse that his co-workers knew where he'd be. Now he's at a club where he feels incredibly awkward just standing at the bar, but he knows he would feel even more awkward anywhere else. He catches the eye of the bartender with a nod and a third pint is pushed his way.

"Is that your second or your third? Because you've been here longer than I have and that's probably saying something." The voice startles him and he turns his head to lock eyes with a woman sitting on a stool, leaning against the bar with one arm resting against the countertop. He vaguely registers that she is beautiful and somehow talking to him, but what startles him the most is that she looks out of place here, too, even in her dress and heels that look entirely uncomfortable but sort of make her legs look amazing.

"And how long have you been staring?" It's the first thought to mind and he nearly smacks himself in the forehead for saying it, but something about the discomfort in her eyes reflects what he's feeling and she smiles instead of telling him to fuck off, which is an okay sign, he thinks. "It's my third," he adds as an afterthought.

She smiles, fleeting and blinding in the dim, awful lighting of the club and when she looks down at her drink, he tries not to stare. "Not long," she says, and she might be blushing but he can't tell in the darkness. When she looks back up at him, he sees the coloured lights reflecting in her eyes. "I'm Jemma, by the way."

"Fitz," he replies, and she raises an eyebrow before he reaches a hand to rest against the back of his neck, feeling sheepish. "It's Leo Fitz, but no one calls me Leo unless they're asking for it. Or they're my mother."

"Fitz it is," she echoes, and for the first time in several hours, he smiles.

\-----

In hindsight, it is an absolutely awful idea to invite someone over to his flat. A women he just happened to meet at a bar--it sounds like a horrible, 20-something cliché that he seems to be fulfilling, but he just wants to get away from the noise and she looks incredibly thankful to be doing the same. He doesn't have intentions and he tries to voice that to her but instead just manages to walk beside her, several inches separating the two of them. "You know, I don't--this isn't some way of coming onto you. I mean, I'm not--I'm not trying to be creepy--oh, fuck."

Jemma laughs and the sound echoes down the quiet street and he turns to look at her, startled. "I believe you, Fitz. I think we're both better off in a quieter place, to be honest. I can finally hear myself think."

He falls silent then, not entirely sure if he wants to hear himself think right now, but they reach the door to his building with remarkable timing. He opens the door for her and she's humming to herself--perhaps she's trying to fill the silence like he desperately wants to do. Their footsteps echo in the stairwell and when they reach his door, his hand is on his neck again. "Well, this is me."

The strange cleanliness of his flat finally seems to work in his favour. Fitz is terrible at organisation and absolutely abhors most cleaning, but he is in London so rarely that his temporary flat doesn't get the chance to be covered in detritus and clothing. "So," she starts, and he closes the door behind them. "I know you mentioned a business trip, but I don't think I heard the details." She sits down on the arm of a cushioned chair and he moves to sit on the couch somewhat across from her.

"Right. My engineering firm occasionally sends me to London--"

"--engineering! I'm biochem. Oh, that's exciting--"

"--apparently they want me to see rain happening in other places besides Glasgow." His eyebrows knit together. "Wait, you're a biochemist?" She nods excitedly. "I'm shite at biology," he admits.

She laughs and he can't help but smile again.

\-----

"How did you nearly fail an anatomy course?" She looks incredulous and he frowns. Jemma is perched on the armrest of the couch now, her feet on the cushion where he was sitting earlier. He has shifted half a cushion to the right, turned toward her in the heat of a conversation that sounds a bit like an argument but is possibly the closest he's ever gotten to flirting with someone. The beer he grabbed from the fridge sits forgotten on the table and her cider is still clutched in her hand.

"By nearly throwing up on the cat I was meant to dissect. I dropped the course almost immediately, though." There's a teasing smile on her face and he sighs. "I'm much better with physics and the theoretical. Applications are only my forte when they're grounded in engineering concepts."

She puts her bottle down next to the lamp and looks a bit lost in thought as she does so. "Well, biology is applied chemistry, and chemistry is applied physics, so we're not too far off." She leans forward, her elbows resting against her knees, hands clasped around her neck. He swallows, pointedly avoiding the way her dress seems to be mocking him, though staring at her so intently might not be such a great idea, either.

When she leans in and presses her lips to his, his first instinct is to grasp at her shoulder with one hand and she pulls back, cheeks flushed, looking radiant. "I--Oh, I'm sorry," she starts, and her mind must be working as frustratingly quickly as his is, so he closes the gap between them this time, his hand moving toward the back of her neck as her hands thread through his hair. He draws away because he can't breathe, not now, knowing that she wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her. "This--this isn't a normal occurrence for me," she murmurs, her forehead pressed to his.

It's his turn to laugh. "Me neither," he says before frowning at how his voice seems to have vanished because of this one woman, brilliant and blinding and more than he could have ever imagined.

"Good." She nods once before sliding across his lap, one knee on either side of him and before he can marvel at her efficiency, her lips are hot over his and he loses all ability to speak.

\-----

She is beautiful and has been from the moment he laid eyes on her at the bar, and he feels like a walking cliché as he thinks this when he helps her out of her dress. He wants to burn this night into his mind because it doesn't quite feel real. He memorises the dip of her collarbone, the noises that fall from her lips when he brushes his thumbs against her breasts. How her eyes seem to be golden with a tinge of brown, the way her eyes squeeze shut when his face is between her legs, tongue pressed to her as he curls two fingers inside her. The feel of her skin against his, the curve of her hip against his hand. The rhythm she sets over him, the sheen over her skin.

When he falls asleep holding her, he thinks about how stupid it was to meet someone the night before leaving London. He dreams of nothing for the first time in months.

He half-expects to wake up to an empty bed, but when he opens his eyes, she is lying on her stomach, half over him with her hands tucked between her chin and his chest. She is smiling and it is infectious. "Good morning," he mutters before yawning. He can't take his eyes off of her.

She tilts her head to one side. "It certainly is," she says in response. Neither of them move for a few moments and he could be content to stay here for the rest of his life, really, but he has to catch a train in a few hours for Glasgow and she must have a world to save. When she lets out of a huff and sits up slightly to reach over him, he is confused and not awake enough for anything except lying in his bed with someone he just met last night. It sounds absolutely absurd, and he tries to process this new twist in his life.

Jemma flops down next to him, lying on her back against the pillows with his mobile clutched in one hand. "I'm giving you my number and you don't need to give me yours or anything, but we can leave this open-ended, yeah?" He presses his lips together because he wants to give her his number now, but it would complicate everything even more than it already is, so instead he nods, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "I know you have to head back to Glasgow, so I should probably head out."

When she leaves wearing one of his jumpers over her dress, he still feels the warmth of her lips against his.

\-----

Not a day passes where Fitz doesn't scroll through his contacts on his mobile and stare at her name. _Jemma Simmons_. She never told him her last name that night, but somehow it suits her.

Work consumes him and he doesn't even get the chance to return to London for over a year. Instead, he is sent across the globe--Japan, Austria, the States. He doesn't even get the usual requests to transfer to London where they are so keen to have him, and now he sort of wishes he had the opportunity. It's stupid, really, how much he wants to see Jemma again, and it's even more stupid that he can't gather up the courage to phone her. He makes excuses: the time zones are too different, what about long distance charges? Fitz talks himself out of it and every time he does, he feels a little more desolate.

His friend Trip, who stays at Fitz's flat in London from time to time, texts him once saying someone was looking for him, but it was a single occurrence and Fitz didn't want to delve too deep. Not now, not when he doesn't know how to confront what he's feeling. He hopes it was a mistake, someone from work who didn't realise he was back in Glasgow.

He brings a sketchbook with him on his travels and though there are several pages filled with landscapes and buildings of astounding architectural beauty, it's always scattered between what he can remember of her. Her smile, the way her eyes lit up when he said he was an engineer, the loose curls in her hair as she laid on his chest. He tells himself at least once a week that he should just forget her because it was just one night. He never rung her, so she would probably be angry if he ever did so belatedly. He tells himself a hundred reasons to pick up his mobile and a thousand reasons to put it back down.

When he finally returns to London, there's a swell of hope that seems to take permanent residence in his chest. He spends a day or two just wandering the city, hoping that maybe he might see her again, letting himself believe in the impossible without talking himself out of it.

On the third day, he returns to his flat after a day of negotiations only to find someone standing outside his door. It's her, and she's holding something in her arms and he stops several feet away, feeling shell-shocked.

"Jemma, I--" His jaw opens and closes several times as he tries to find words to say. "I'm sorry, I should've called, but I thought you'd be upset with me." Fitz is about to ramble on but a small hand appears outside of the bundle and his jaw immediately snaps shut, his brows knitting together in confusion. She is watching him with a guarded expression, but he sees several emotions flit across her face when he takes a few steps closer.

She chews her bottom lip as he stops in front of her. "I wanted to ring you, but I didn't have your number." He feels his cheeks redden in embarrassment, but despite all of his brain's efforts to get him to look down at the floor, he still can't tear his eyes from her. She is still as blinding as when they first met. "This is Niamh." He squints at her before looking down at the bundle in her arms.

_She has his blue eyes_.

He looks up at Jemma so quickly that he feels whiplash in his neck and there's an acute sense of panic travelling through his limbs and into his brain. There are tears in her eyes but she isn't crying and for that, he is thankful, thankful for one small saving grace, especially as his mind starts travelling at light speed. "I thought about you every day, you know, and when I found out I was pregnant, I came here without thinking and your friend Triplett answered, and oh, Fitz, I couldn't tell him the truth so I just left my number and asked him to tell me when you were back in London." He remains completely dumbfounded, at a loss for words so she continues to speak. "I just wanted you to meet her, even if it's only this one time. You don't--you don't have to be a part of her life if you don't want to, and I know you live in Glasgow and this is far too complicated, and I shouldn't have even come, really--"

"--Jemma, stop, please." She falls quiet and stares at him in bewilderment, and he stares back. His heartbeat starts to settle but he's sure she can hear it in every word he speaks. "I'm being moved to London in three weeks for work." He cringes because those should not be the first words that he says to her after all that. He feels his face flush even further. "I'm leaving Glasgow in less than two." He looks down at the baby in her arms-- _their daughter_ \--reaches a finger up to rest against her chest. Niamh stares up at him, a smile frozen in place as her small fingers wrap around his. "I'm a _father_."

He should be more panicked, really--should be worried that he'll end up like his own father, picking up and leaving without enough notice, but the mind-numbing rush of new emotions throws everything into a new orbit. Leopold Fitz might not believe in miracles, but he certainly believes in _this_ , in the impossible woman before him and the baby in her arms, in impeccable timing and maybe a hint of fate. "I should've been there... I want to be a part of her life, Jemma, and yours, too, if you--you know, if you're okay with that."

Jemma presses her mouth to his in response and he feels his cheeks dampen, though whether that's from her tears or his, he can't quite tell. Niamh gurgles loudly between them and he pulls back with a disbelieving laugh, their foreheads still touching as he wriggles his finger in the baby's grasp. "D'you want to come inside?"

"Yes," she says immediately, her voice caught on laughter in her throat. She beams despite everything that has just happened. She pulls back further and bounces their daughter in her arms. "Look, love, this is Daddy."

His heart is near bursting and he doesn't mind one bit.


End file.
